DVB (digital video broadcasting) is a suite of internationally accepted open standards for broadcasting digital television. The standards are maintained by an industry consortium known as the DVB Project. The DVB standard is published by a Joint Technical Committee of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and others.
DVB systems, and similar broadcast networks, distribute data by, for example, satellite, cable, terrestrial television, and terrestrial television for handheld devices. DVD-H is the specification for broadcasting to battery powered handheld devices. This specification, along with a set of related specifications for IP datacast (DVB-IPDC), are key enabling technologies for mobile television.
DVB-H is largely based on the successful DVB-T specification for digital terrestrial television, with additional features designed to account for the limited battery life of small handheld devices, and the particular environment in which such receivers must operate.
DVB-H uses high bandwidth channels with high transmission speeds in order to provide a wide selection of high quality TV services to mobile users. There is no limit to how many people can receive the content within the coverage area. Such broadcasting is known as “one-two-many” broadcasting, and is a cost-effective means of delivering content media to large audiences, compared to one-to-one delivery over, for example, a cellular network, where the data is sent separately to each recipient.
Recently, cellular telephone manufacturers have added DVB receivers to a cellular phone so that the cell phone user can receive both digital video broadcasts and cellular phone and data services on a single mobile device. The combination of such devices provides opportunities for integrated or cooperating services provided to the mobile device user. However, these two network technologies are currently stand-alone technologies and have little or no inter-working capabilities defined.